This is NOT a "cool mist" humidifier. When one thinks of a cool mist humidifier, you assume that it makes a cooled flow of steam from a nozzle, like you see in the department store floor models. That is not what this model does at all, there is no "mist". This model operates on the same principle as a "swamp cooler" or "evaporative cooler" that some of you may be familiar with, or even be using to cool your homes with in the summer. Basically, the water from the tank fills a tray at the bottom of the unit. The filter pads, which are actually wicks, rest in the tray and soak up the water. The fan pulls the air through the filter/wick from which the water will then evaporate, thus humidifying the air which passes through the unit. Simplified: A fan sucks air through a wet pad. So, no "cool mist", but it does increase the humidity of the air.
The drawback of using this method is that the unit becomes less effective the more humid the room gets, unlike a steam-type humidifier which will keep putting out the same amount of moisture until shut off. I guess one could look at it one way and say that the unit will not over-humidify a room, but it also means that if one desires a high humidity level, that level will be very difficult to reach.
So, the good things about the unit:
The unit has a small footprint, which is nice. It also has a decently sized tank which lasts a while for us. Like the previous reviewer, we also live in the Northeast, and I can tell you that right now in the Winter, it is VERY dry here. 25% humidity or so. We got this unit to improve conditions for both of us because we were waking up with dry throats, and to ease conditions for my wife who has intermittent asthma. The unit has 6 settings: Low/Medium/High and humidistat controlled Low/Medium/High. The humidistat will allow you to set the unit to turn off/on just like a thermostat for your heater when a desired humidity is reached. Under humidistat control using the low setting, a tank of water will last about a day and a half, which is pretty good for us. Some folks have complained about the fan noise on this model and it's silver sister model, but it doesn't bother us at all on low. I guess if you're used to a dead quiet room, it might be an issue, but we prefer a very small amount of white noise in the background. The unit comes with 2 extra filter pairs, which is nice (1 pair required in the unit).
The not so great things about the unit:
It must be on a completely level surface, or the water in the tray can spill. It is NOT a cool mist humidifier, as the name indicates. It has a little meter on the top that tells you when the filter must be cleaned. The indicator must be completely arbitrary or useless, I haven't figured it out yet. Sometimes it says the filter must be cleaned as soon as the unit is turned on and then indicates "good" after 5 minutes. Sometimes with a completely new filter and no water, it says they need to be cleaned. We just clean the filters once a week and call it good. The humidistat has issues with reading/indicating the correct humidity I've read in other reviews, ours seems to be OK. Just something to keep in mind. The nice large tank has no handle to hold while filling, and because of the length of the tank you'll need to fill it in your bathtub most likely. Because of the lack of a handle, be careful not to drop the tank as it is prone to cracking (as other reviewers have found out).
Overall:
We like the unit for the price. It does humidify the room, but not as well as a true "mist" or steam type of humidifier. The filters are a bit of a pain, but the high end humidifiers all have more expensive filter systems, so this one is cheap in comparison. The faulty filter meter is a negative, and the fact that the name is very misleading is a huge negative (-1 star for that alone). Don't get me wrong, we'd probably get this unit again, we just feel that the misleading product title (in our opinion) is bad for consumers; and there should be some design changes, such as a handle on the tank for filling. So feel free to buy the unit, just realize what your are really getting!
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We just purchased this item in the past week, so this is more a note of first impressions than a full in depth review.
A couple of things I like about it are the small footprint & easy access to the filters for future replacement.
Although aesthetically pleasing, the units poorly designed reservoir is a royal PIA to fill.
The opening to fill the tank is on the bottom and is sealed with a cap that you can easily turn to open. The problem is that the top of the tank comes to such a sharp angle that you can not rest the tank upside down and walk away while it fills because it will certainly topple over. In fact even just holding on its end while filling can be a challenge in a smooth sink who's bottom is slanted towards the drain.
This might not be too annoying an issue if you have a great water supply and adequate pressure to fill the tank very quickly. But because the water in our area is so heavily chlorinated we use one of those filters that threads onto the end of your faucet; which greatly reduces the chlorine, but has a fairly weak amount of pressure, so I am standing there for awhile holding the tank with both hands & waiting for it to slowly fill. One thing I have done to speed up the process is to have a couple of bottles already filled that I can pour into the tank. This still is a PIA though because you either have to have one person hold the tank while the other pours or you have to hold & tuck the tank kind of under your arm while pour with the other hand.
The product description states:
"The unit produces a cool mist that is dispersed by a powerful, yet quiet fan."
Powerful? yes. Quiet, uh-uh; even on its lowest setting this thing makes a good amount of noise. We have it in our bedroom and, although I usually am so tired I fall asleep quickly, if I wake up during the night that fan is all I hear.
The product description further states:
"It will run up to 36 hours on a full tank of water."
Hmmm.. maybe if we lived in a more humid environment...like the amazon rain forest. In our case, in the North East US, with the fan on low, the tank will last all night and some hours after that but it will be dry before noon.
On the plus side it does do what we want which is add moisture to the room to relieve static electricity and dried sinuses.
we have not played around with the control settings more than just to turn it on auto. The unit is supposed to tell you what percentage of moisture you have in the room, however even running all night the gauge does not really change to anything higher than 27, so I don't really have much faith in it.
There is also a gauge mounted on top of the unit which is supposed to give you an indication as to the remaining life of the filter(s)we have not had it long enough yet to tell how reliable that is though.
I hope at some point in time AMAZON lets us more fine tune our star rating, I really would give this 2 1/2 out of 5. I do not hate the unit; after all it does what we want, but the design of the reservoir leaves a great deal to be desired
Perhaps I will at a future date post an update, but for now I just wanted to make sure that potential buyers have a better idea what they are considering buying.
Have a Magical New Year!
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I agree with the previous two. The low fan speed setting is too noisy for a bedroom.
The tank is indeed tricky to hold steady while filling in the kitchen sink. As a matter of fact it just slipped out of my hands after almost full (the bottom is slanted and slippery to hold steady resting in the sink) and cracked! Now I have to get a replacement tank! It is very pleasing esthetically and has a small footprint to hide behind funiture. I like the 3 fan speeds and automatic humidity settings. It will shut off when it reaches the set value and turn back on like a thermostat works for your heat. You can't expect it to increase the humidity of a whole house so the area or volume of space must be taken into account when determining if it alone will raise the humidity enough.
A full 1.3 gal tank will last less than 24 hrs on low speed.
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I bought this Bionaire from Costco last year. I use it to humidify the first floor of my 2700 square foot home. Although that may be alot to ask of a single unit to handle, the unit managed to bring up the humidity level enough for my needs. It has a huge water tank that requires a refill about twice a day, so it's evident how much water it is putting into the air. It is programmable to the humidity level you want, and has 3 fan speeds in case you want to watch TV so you can turn it down. The filters lasted a full winter season of constant use. The filter gage is accurate enough, but may take a few tanks of water for it to accurately sense the life left in the filters.
I was online looking to buy another when I saw these bad reviews, so I thought I would set the record straight from my experience. I plan to buy another for my 2nd floor.
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This humidifier words in my big room only if the heater is turned off, an the windows are completly shut... It's winter, and I won't be without the heater on... so what is the point?
My advise is, buy another one.
The only plus is that tells you how humid the room is, and turns off by itself if it has reached the level you want... but if it will reach that level, it's another story.
The indicator to change/clean the filter varies every day... so it's not reliable. One day it's telling me to clean, and in the next is clean, when I haven't done a thing... crazy hum?
I don't have the box anymore... I will see anyways if home depot takes it back without the box.
